Virtue rewarded as Filipino man wins $17m on lottery

Good manners have paid dividends for a man in the Philippines who won 741m pesos ($17m: £10.5m) in a lottery. An official for the national lottery said the father-of-three was next in a queue to buy a ticket when a woman rudely pushed in ahead of him.

He graciously let her go ahead, and in turn he bought the winning ticket, choosing "lucky pick" numbers. He is believed to be a Filipino in his sixties, living in the US, who was back in the Philippines visiting family. The lottery agency has a policy of keeping the names of winners secret, partly to protect them from kidnap attempts.



When the draw was made on 29 November, nobody had won the lottery since 15 May. The prize money had accumulated over 86 consecutive draws to become the country's biggest ever jackpot and millions of people bought tickets. The winner beat odds of one in nearly 29m.

But the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) says he forgot to check the lottery numbers for a week and when he realised he had won, his response was gracious. "When he won, he kept thinking: how sad for that woman. She could have won the big prize if she had just been patient," PCSO chair, Margie Juico said.